Masters Thesis at Tulane University
Award: Top 16 thesis commendation
Critic: Graham Owen
Location: Dubai, UAE
Status: Academic Proposal
For reasons of resource scarcity and the projected effects of desertification around the globe, Dubai and similar cities are quite vulnerable and can threaten global economic stability. This project proposes a new urban planning strategy and a prototypical desalination infrastructure to mitigate social and climatic threats, provide jobs, create long-term economic viability, and stabilize the future of a city of over two million inhabitants on which the global economy relies.
Special Thanks to: Tulane/Newcomb University, Emily Hayden and Stuart Hurt.
Randy Mosby P.E. and John Robbins P.E., both of whom passed away in 2016, lent their support and expertise throughout the development of this project. It is dedicated posthumously to them.
Location: Southern Louisinana
Status: Complete
Size: 17,000 sq ft.
The project is located in a heavily forested area on the edge of a bayou, far removed from the city. We wanted to build on this idea and create an entry sequence that conceals the site first and reveals the architecture on the approach. Once you enter the house the experience is inverted - the Architecture becomes concealed and the site revealed. The project consists of two walls that are organized perpendicular to one another; one light and the second dark. These two main features express function; the dark entry wall symbolizes public and the upper wall private. These two walls also form the boundaries of the motor court which is the first public space where you arrive, as the entry road bends and emerges from the trees to this dramatic clearing punctuated by a floating wall that conceals the private wing - the levitated mass.
Project Team: Bayne Dickinson, Ray Zabala, Charles Jones David Merlin, Libby Creim, Matt Decotiis, Jake Gamberg, Phillip Geiman, Emily Hayden, Robert Holford, Charles Jones, Max Katz, Joe Lantz, Troy LeGeaux, Robert Mosby, Mike Nesbit, Evan Wagner.
Role: Schematic Design, Design Development, Shop Drawings, 3D Modeling, Precast Development/Rationalization, Renderings
Location: Miami, FL
Status: In progress
A private art collector, who specializes in modern and contemporary art from Latin America, is developing his well-known gallery into a new museum: the Latin American Art Museum (LAAM). He invited FR-EE to design the first home for the museum. The collection includes artists such as Diego Rivera, Fernando Botero, Wifredo Lam, Guillermo Kutica, Roberto Matta, Rufino Tamayo, among others. The building is inspired by the different sections of the urban composite of Miami, whose outline gives shape to each of the four levels. The floors create generous terraces, which blur the border between indoors and outdoors, and transform the spaces into real “sculptural gardens”. Different levels define the program of the museum. The first floor is reserved for emergent artists, the second will house temporary exhibitions, and the third will show a selection of works of the permanent collection. A restaurant will be located on the fourth and uppermost floor.-text via FR-EE
Project Team: Fernando Romero, Sergio Rebelo, Unai Artetxe, Daniela Gallo, Robert Mosby, Sunny Ruoting, Celia Julve, João Urbano, Jessica Wang, Yuri Jeong, Alex Zee, Feifei Song, Qingyi Chen, Francisco Rocha, Wen Zhu
Role: Code research, preliminary design, process renderings, and 3D modeling
Location: New Orleans, LA
Status: Built
Utilizing more than 17,000 straws, the team strung together an architectural space that engages touch, sound, and sight. Twelve panels form two constantly fluid pathways that focus perspective while activating the senses. The dematerialization of straws, characterized by porosity and local interconnectivity, creates ‘field conditions’ defined not by over arching geometry but by intricate intervals, repetition, and seriality.
An individual can run their hand over the fluid structure of straws which activates the weights (nails) at the end of each vertical strand. The result of each individual nail tapping together creates a tranquil and mesmerizing melody. During the procession through the pathway your sight is focused forward while the periphery is blurred as result of the material.
Project Team: Jazzy Li, Eric Baumgartner, Robert Mosby, Amelia Steelman, Beau Bradock, Chris Baker, Frank Xiong, James Ball, Kevin Franklin, Lexi Tammer
Photo Credit: Dave Armentor, Jill Stoll and Alexandra Bojarski-Stauffer
Press: http://www.archdaily.com/113772/architects-week-tulane-school-of-architecture
Location: New Orleans, LA
Status: Acedemic Proposal
Critic: John Klingman
Proposal associated with Dutch Dialog; a movement dealing with water issues of New Orleans.
This studio explored the transformation of the London Avenue Canal from a concrete drainage channel into a wet canal as an urban amenity. Continuous public access and provision for crossing the canal were designed so that the canal is a locus of activity rather than a barrier. The site focused on the Dillard University campus and the expansion of the University into a landlocked city-owned site of bottomland forest on the other side of the canal. Through an ecosystem restoration project, including enhanced water management, this site parcel could become a campus arboretum. A pavilion for study/teaching of environmental issues and student housing were the architectural design components. Other programs serving the needs of the University and community were also proposed, including an outdoor amphitheater and student housing. The buildings established a strong presence with water, and the campus was redesigned as a hydrophilic environment, incorporating fountains, ponds, and wetlands for water storage, creating an oasis within the city.
Location: West Hollywood, CA
Status: Academic Proposal
Size: 143,000 sq ft.
This proposal addressed the mixed-use boulevard building typology of West Hollywood, CA. The intervention’s goal was to break down the boulevard by fracturing the building into separate programmatic pieces that sit on top of a retail plinth. The mass closest to the street includes a restaurant and office space above which is accessed and activated by an elevated outdoor park. The second mass closer to the interior of the block contains single family and micro living units. The inclusion of the micro unit layout contributes to the conceptual idea of ‘fracture/split’ as a considered disruption of the market rate housing options in West Hollywood. The result of the split provides an elevated public park which is the connector between neighborhood and boulevard; activated by restaurant, office, residential and retail activity.
Location: Miami, FL
Status: On-Going
Size: 520,000 sq. ft.
Client: Emilio Estenfan
Emilio Estefan, a Cuban-American musician and producer, invited FR-EE to design a new mixed-use tower in the heart of Miami’s Arts & Entertainment District. Acting as a metaphor for the city’s diversity, the building houses everything necessary for daily life: shopping, restaurants, cafés, apartments, offices, parking and amenities. The changes in color from light green to magenta as it ascends and the height variations of the parapets, which will be used for advertising at the parking level, give a dramatic dynamism to the façade and skyline. -text via FR-EE
Project Team: Fernando Romero, Mauricio Ceballos, Sergio Rebelo, Alba Díaz, Pedro Ramírez de Aguilar, Fatimah Azzara, Libia Castilla, Diego Velázquez, Alonso Rosales, Robert Mosby.
Role: Schematic Design, 3D Modeling, supplementary rendering
Location: New Orleans, LA
Status: Complete
Located in the Lower Garden District, this single-story brick warehouse complex holds landmark designation. The two buildings in the complex are two of the few remaining, intact, cotton press complex buildings on the riverfront and represent the importance the cotton industry had on New Orleans. They embody distinguishing characteristics of a nineteenth-century brick industrial buildings inherently valuable for their craftsmanship in ornate brick detailing.
The buildings were developed into leasing property in the late 1970s. This interior renovation project addresses a 1,610 square-foot unit in the center of the larger building in the complex. Previous renovations compromised the volume of the original space and used materials that compromised the quality of the brick and heavy timber construction. The current renovation focuses on reestablishing the volume of the original space and implementing a material strategy that complements the exquisite existing palette.
The new plan simplifies the organization into a gallery, open studio, and conference room spatially defined by a service bar. The gallery space previously compressed by an 8’ ceiling datum has been opened to the original ceiling creating a significant volume that also services as entry into the space. The minimal number of walls are conceived as white planes that drop into the background bringing the warm brick and heavy timber into the foreground. An appropriate complement to a historic site. - text via One to One
Project Team: Charles Jones, David Merlin, Robert Mosby
Role: Design, Construction Document, Server door pattern design.
Location: Mazatlan, Sinaloa
Status: On-Going
Located in the port city of Mazatlán, the structure’s shape references the region’s alternative name – the ‘Pearl of the Pacific’. The scheme integrates a geodesic dome in order to bring two contrasting environments together: the ground floor overlooking the upper level and a park that offers views of the city and the sea. The design features a curved body, resembling an oyster with a pearl at its center. In terms of materiality, the steel structure is clad with a material resistant to weather conditions, with small apertures filtering light inside the museum building. As the scheme is planned for a flood-prone area of land, the structure is set on an elevated base, with part of the façade incorporating photovoltaic panels. Internally, the main exhibition areas are found at the lower level, alongside an IMAX cinema capable of hosting up to 350 people. Above, the first floor houses a temporary multi-thematic room, a restaurant, and access to the terrace. An upper floor is to be used as a documentation center, with classrooms for workshops and employee training. -text via FR-EE
Team: Sietecolores Ideas Interactivas Fernando Romero, Mauricio Ceballos, Alba Díaz, Raymundo Zamora, Brian Slocum, Ignacio Méndez, Claudia Santos, Juan Pablo Huerta, Diego Velázquez, Nadezda Stankovic, Gaia Cella, Gustavo Pérez, Elisabetta Cabras, Robert Mosby, El Mehdi Belyasmine, Ignacio Herrera, Libia Castilla.
Role: Site analysis, Preliminary Design, 3D modeling and Process Visualizations
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Status: Completed
Size: 30,000 sq. ft.
This project was a collaborative endeavor with Bayne Dickinson Architect, One to One Design and Spackman Mossop & Michaels. The Human Resource building is the first of 3 buildings for the Performance Contractors headquarters located in Baton Rouge Louisiana.
The building geometry is informed by the main road leading to the headquarters. The road is curved with a 660’ radius that is reflected in the curved precast panels infield with curtain wall that highlights the striking Louisiana sky. The radial geometry of the site will eventually connected all the buildings designed for the master plan.
Working closely with Gate Precast, One to One assisted in the rationalization of all precast on the campus. When complete, the campus buildings will include some of the largest produced curved architectural precast in the United States. The precast located at the base of the HR building is striated with both a sand blasted and polished finish. Geometric complexity was not the only challenge. We rigorously pursued the highest level of detail in both fabrication and installation. This rigor is manifested in the mitered precast corner.
Client: Performance Contractors Inc.
Design Team: Bayne Dickinson Architect (Project Architect), One to One Design (Lead Designer), Spackman Mossip & Michaels (Landscape).
Role: Core and Shell, 3D modeling, Renderings and Design Development Documents
Location: Washington DC, USA
Status: Competition Submission
Submerged deep within the World War I Memorial, at the intersection of sacrifice and honor, one understands the magnitude of that relationship—two outcomes at once antithetical and reciprocal. One wall extends valiantly into the landscape toward the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument, yet is fractured from its position of stature as if struck with a fatal blow. This results in a monumental land shift, allowing the visitor to inhabit the sunken threshold between triumph and tragedy. This is the place where all paths converge and space compresses. It also marks the Turning Point in World War I, where America enters the war and changes the course of our Nation’s history forever.
Looking to the East, light washes along the fractured Wall of Honor, yet fades to darkness along the earthen Wall of Sacrifice, which contains an embedded timeline highlighting events and tragedies of the war. To the West, General Pershing is enveloped in glass—an enduring presence watching over those who come to honor the men he led. As the sacrifices build and the timeline unfolds, visitors ascend from the earth to the meadow, a park full of life and hope.
As a memorial which honors a generation no longer with us, its mission is to highlight America’s foundations to advancement—sacrifice which brings honor, and honor which brings us hope and confidence for the future. -text via One to One
Project Team: Charles Jones, David Merlin, Robbie Mosby, James Catalano, Max Katz, Aurora Smith
Role: Project designer, renderings, and graphics
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Status: Competition Proposal - Honorable Mention
Project Description:
Economy
Louisiana stands at the brink of economic disaster. The state is facing a $600 million budget deficit. Without sharp and painful tax increases, the government will cease to offer many of its vital services, including education opportunities and certain programs for the needy. A popular TOPS scholarship fund is depleted with the state only able to provide roughly 48% of the more than $250 million funding for this coming school year.
Policy
In June 2015, former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed a law legalizing the use of medical marijuana in the state. However there was no legal way of obtaining medical marijuana until May 2016. Senator Fred Mills led the passing of a bill providing the framework for how one can obtain medical marijuana. The bill establishes one grow site and ten legal dispensaries in the state and offers Louisiana State University the right of first refusal to the grow site. Administrators have until September 2016 to make their decision.
Resources
Agriculture was an important part of Louisiana’s economy when it was first settled. Today agriculture is much less important to Louisiana’s economy than it was earlier in the state’s history. Only a small fraction of residents earn their living on farms, and most of the production comes from relatively few large farms in the alluvial plains of the Mississippi River.
Education
Returning to Louisiana’s original industry, the Cannabis Research Opportunity Program is the state’s grow site and distribution center partnered with the LSU College of Agriculture. It will include a dispensary for the public, a vertical farming hydroponic tower, and research and classroom spaces. The vertical farming hydroponic tower will be a research facility for the LSU College of Agriculture allowing people hands-on experience in hydroponic growing systems. The building will have a strong visual presence in direct relation to the Louisiana state capital building in downtown Baton Rouge. The adjacency of the cannabis bank to the state capital establishes a commentary on existing government policy as medical marijuana only is currently legal. The cannabis bank will be a model for future marijuana grow sites and research centers with sustainable features that will produce energy and collect and recycle water among other things.
Project Team: Charles Jones, David Merlin, Robert Mosby, Jill Thompson, Matt DeCotiis
Personal Role: Lead Designer and Assistant project manager.
Press:
https://cannabisbank.beebreeders.com/
http://www.archdaily.com/791746/bee-breeders-announce-winners-of-cannabis-bank-competition
Location: Central City, New Orleans, LA
Status: Research
Size: 4.2 Acres
The relocation of the current Central City Brown’s Dairy processing plant will have both an economic and development impact on the city. It has been estimated that at least 185 jobs will lost when the plant is relocated. This will also open the land for the highest bidder to develop over 4 acres in the heart of Central City. This would have a major impact on the tight-knit local population and increase the socioeconomic divide. This proposal identifies methods for a sustainable and sensitive proposal for the neighborhood.
Brown’s Dairy Redevelopment is a research project conducted in collaboration with the Albert & Tina Small City Center and the Youth Empowerment Program. The research project focuses on ways to engage the community in the design of a 4.2 acre mixed used development. The goal of the proposal was to address the issues of gentrification by providing community driven spaces for all socioeconomic backgrounds. The team identified numerous local and national partners in focused on aspects of community development, residential subsidies, environmental remediation, urban farming, and education. The idea was that these organization would help with infrastructure, expertise, and funding
The program focused on vocational education, community outreach, local retail, urban farming, and market/affordable housing. The program was developed in collaboration with local residents and our team members from Youth Empowerment Program. The educational component is the heart of the development and focuses on traditional and future trade based skills; construction, automotive repairs, electrical, mechanical, CAD, CAM, digital fabrication, and digital design. The proposed plan is to partner with local industry, Delgado Community College, and New Orleans Job Corps Center.
Location: Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Status: Complete
Where technology and digital fabrication are becoming integral to America’s education system, schools and universities lack the actual collaborative space to share ideas and experiment.
In collaboration with the Tulane University’s School of Science and Engineering, One to One took on the renovation of the program’s current 4100 sf shop space in pursuit of creating the “Maker Space.” Originally under-utilized and exclusive to science and engineering students, the new space will be open to all Tulane students and house an influx of 3D printers, laser cutters, vacuum formers, traditional shop equipment, and a CNC mill.
With digital design inherently pushing designers into an isolated world of keyboard and monitor, face to face collaboration is waning. One to One pushed to design collaborative clusters for different forms of ideation in order to promote cross-pollination across disciplines. -text via One to One
Project Team: Charles Jones, David Merlin, Robert Mosby
Construction Team: Blake Bergeron (Woodward Design + Build)
Location: Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Status: Complete
This project was an exploration in drawing and representation using a CNC mill retrofitted with an Ipad and TV. The process and movement of the mill was documented using multiple angle long exposure photography. All of the following images were not digitally altered but developed through the relationship between movement and time.
Project Team: Robert Mosby, Eric Lynn, Tayson Ng, Logan Legget, Gavin West
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Status: Competition Proposal
The project proposal is primarily an investigation between perception and the misrepresentation of information. In this case, the experience between user and the art within a controlled environment is both physical and digital. We propose to filter the experience of physical art pieces in LACMA by means of an augmented reality program delivered through a virtual headset.
We wish to question the way contemporary culture observes, interprets, and assigns value to visual information.
Project Team: Charles Jones, Mike Nesbit, David Merlin, Robert Mosby, Cole Herskowitz
Role: Concept development, filter execution (rhino+grasshopper), media development
Implementation
1. Select an art piece within a particular gallery space a LACMA.
2. Digitally scan the entire gallery space as well as the art piece that occupies the space.
3. Optimization of 3D scanned information.
4. The art work's characteristics (geometry, color, texture, etc.) will be processed through the Phlatness Filter from every viewable angle within the gallery space.
5. Once the entire environment is rendered it is then streamed to a virtual headset which allows the user to experience the art piece within the gallery space, in real-time, with the Phlatness Filter applied.
Project Location: Tulane school of Architecture, New Orleans, LA
During the spring of 2013, as part of an independent research project, myself and two other students were awarded a grant to build and modify an inexpensive open-source 3d printer (printrbot+) The focus of the project was on modifying the printer to print with ceramics and other "paste" materials. The research culminated in a series of parametrically designed cups that tested design and fabrication possibilities with the printer.
Project Team: Robert Mosby, Kyle Ryan, Dave Namaky
Location: Hamburg, Germany - Copenhagen, Denmark
Status: Research + University Lecture
For hundreds of years, the world’s population has been attracted to water for industry, transportation, and trade. This move towards industry led to the development of huge harbors to meet the demand of trade and create a link to foreign markets. In modern times, with the decline of industrial development and a change in economic focus, there has been a series of water cities left with abandoned waterfronts and harbors. Now the once-serene water landscapes of the past are hardscapes and ruins of the industrial city.
The movement of industry from the city center has given opportunity for development in once-dense industrial water fronts. These areas now can be reinvented to meet the demands of the world’s growing population and need for cultural identity. The now postindustrial city is looking at how to adapt to the new needs of the people. Specifically necessary is how harbor brownfield sites can be developed and reinvented into cultural, residential, and recreational sites for the people. Are there ways to not only promote livability of the harbor but also expand for the future?
On the macro scale, my focus was on how the urban fabric and typologies of architecture promotes the livability and r0-invention of industrial harbor. On the micro scale, I learned how architecture celebrates the livability with water and softens the industrial landscape through the use of material, scale, texture, and sustainability initiatives.
The adjacent images are from a lecture about the research.
Special thanks to: Tulane Class of 1973 - JDS Architects - COBE - Tredje Natur - Bo Christiansen
For more information about my research: http://reinventingtheharbor.wordpress.com/